Topical Tropes

These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.

Badass Decay: While many of these characters don't complete their Badass Decay until DBZ, they do have a noticeable decline in effectiveness in this series:

Master Roshi: At the start of the series, he is stronger than Goku. He even beats Goku during the 21st World Martial Arts Tournament. By the Piccolo Jr. Saga, he is Demoted to Extra, and he stays that way through Z.

These days, Yamcha's mostly known for getting his ass kicked a lot. Most people forget that when he was first introduced in the series, he actually almost defeated Goku in battle. The only thing preventing him from the finishing blow so was that Bulma happened to wake up at that time, and Yamcha left because of his crippling fear of pretty girls. He was also the first person to use a KI technique and ended up saving everyone from Goku's Great Ape form at the end of the story arc.

Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The Penguin Village episodes. The segment is actually a crossover with one of Toriyama's other works, Dr. Slump, but to fans who don't get the reference it comes off as simply bizarre.

Broken Base: Dragon Ball vs. Dragon Ball Z is a not as commonly debated over but it happens.

Tao Pai Pai from the Red Ribbon Army Arc is an assassin who cares only about profit and ruthlessly and remorselessly wipes out anyone who gets in his way with his bare hands. After he murders Upa's father and defeats Goku in battle, he laughs at Upa and tells him that he's lucky that he's still alive, meaning that he has absolutely no problem killing children. One of his worst offenses has got to be when he forced a tailor to overwork on making an outfit for him in about three days...which he rewarded by killing the tailor. When he returns to Karin's Tower to look for the one Dragon Ball he neglected to find, he grabs Upa and throws him against the tower (fortunately, he was saved by Goku). After his defeat, he was rebuilt into an Ax-Crazy cyborg who wanted nothing more than the deaths of both Goku and Tenshinhan. He's a major Knight of Cerebus for the series.

Goku, when he wasn't defeating armies on his own armed with only a magic pole and a flying cloud, he was transforming into a giant Ape and destroying anything in his path, using air to one shot his opponents, kicking peoples asses with rock-paper-scissors, using his tail to fly like a helicopter, flying into the air and punching holes through demon aliens with only one arm and using his power pole to sodomize a ninja. And this stuff happened when he was a child. As an adult he reeked of Crazy Awesome, so much so that him just powering up nearly destroyed the planet.

Tao Pai Pai killed a man with his tongue and he did this during his debut in the show. His crazy awesomenes then goes to a whole new level when he taps a pillar and breaks it out, while leaving the building completely intact then throws the pillar and jumps onto it while it's moving. Tao Pai Pai's only comment on that matter is, "Who needs a jet when when we've got a perfectly good pillar."

Cult Classic: The series gets this treatment due to being ignored for its sequel, Dragon Ball Z.

The announcer for the World Martial Arts Tournament, so much so that when he didn't appear in the Cell Games saga some fans got quite irate. Fortunately, he makes his return in the Buu Saga.

General Blue, for being pretty much the only competent member of the Red Ribbon Army - starting at the point where he strangles an electric eel to death while it's still electrocuting him.

Akkuman/Devilman for having what could be considered the most powerful attack in all of Dragon Ball/Z. Hell he was even a playable character in Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (where he even gets his own what-if story), Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure and Dragon Ball: The Revenge of King Piccolo.

Freud Was Right: As a child, Goku thinks girls don't have tails and guys do. Then he sees Bulma naked and thinks she's been castrated.

Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Special mention to Europe (specially France, Spain and Italy) and Latin America, where Dragon Ball is not only probably THE most popular anime in history, but also a full-blown pop culture classic. The fact that it became popular in those territories way earlier than in the US, definitely helped.note Although the anime was released in the US in 1989 (around the same time as Europe and Latin America) it took a whole decade and several re-releases for it to really catch up in the early 2000s. By that time, in Europe and Latin America Dragon Ball had been a massive juggernaut for years.

Harsher in Hindsight: Given what Dr. Gero did to avenge the fall of the Red Ribbon Army it makes Commander Red's real goal even more disturbing.

Commander Red is voiced by Kenji Utsumi in the Japanese version, and desires to become taller. Utsumi later voices a Stalinist rogue GRU Colonel, yet later ends up defeated by someone who looks a heck of a lot like a tall version of Commander Red in Metal Gear Solid 3.

The scene where Pilaf blows a kiss to Bulma in the Pilaf Saga becomes hilarious when his Japanese voice actor, Shigeru Chiba, ends up voicing another silly villain who has a huge amount of Foe Yay/somewhat Yandere-esque traits towards his nemesis. Bonus points for the fact that the villain's nemesis, Terra Branford, has an alternate costume that gives her a slightly similar appearance to Bulma.note In case anyone's curious, the alternate costume was based on her field sprite in her original game.

Magnificent Bastard: Demon King Piccolo qualifies, considering that he knew that Shen Long would have been called again with another potential reunion of the Dragon Balls (so he kills him before having any chance to depart).

Moral Event Horizon: The Pilaf gang freeing Demon King Piccolo from the rice cooker he was imprisoned in. Before that they had never done anything especially bad (except try to kill Goku and friends and they were laughably incompetent at doing so anyway).

Recycled Script: The Dragon Ball movies are all very loose adaptations of story arcs from the original manga and TV series.

Curse of the Blood Rubies adapts the first Dragon Ball hunt, with the original character King Gurume substituting Emperor Pilaf as the ultimate antagonist.

Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle starts off with a sub-plot involving Goku and Krillin being sent to find the titular Princess (eventually revealed to be a precious diamond) for Master Roshi, just like when they were sent to find a cute girl for Roshi in the manga.

Mystical Adventure combines the Red Ribbon Army and 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai arcs and puts them in an entirely different context.

The Lord Slug movie matches the plot of the King Piccolo arc. An evil Namekian wishes for his youth and power. This one is painfully obvious.

And the tenth anniversary movie Path to Power retells the first arc of the first search of the Dragon Balls, but with the Red Ribbon Army as the main antagonists.

So Cool It's Awesome: The manga is considered as such by many fans as well as profesional mangaka (such as Eichiiro Oda), many citing it as not only a great influence but also the reason they got into manga in the first place and a milestone.

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